The Black Horse...
first!

and this is my first 'first'!!

Woo and yay!

anyhoo...



I happened to mention on one of my previous posts that my band often plays at a pub run by 3 Indian midgets – affectionately known as ‘Snap, Crackle and Pop’ – and that these guys were decent blokes.

By New Year’s Day 2008, I realised that I had been lying to you all.

First of all – there are four of them – Two of whom are identical midget twins and I never saw them in the same room at the same time...easy mistake to make.

Secondly, they are collectively the most evil, money grabbing, tightwad filth-ridden scum sucking bunch of cuntbuckets it has ever been my misfortune to happen across.

They run a pub called the Black Horse in a little village near us. Now it’s one of those gaffs that has abandoned its ‘village pub’ principles and decided to descent into the putrid pure profitability of becoming a curry restaurant…with a bit of a pub attached. (There’s no money in keeping the locals happy apparently).

They’ve been running this pub for about a year or so now and it’s quite a big place. Also, as nobody lives there as Landlord anymore they had apparently decided to make the upstairs section into a sort of B&B.

Here’s where we come in.

Our band’s usual New Year’s Eve gig cancelled on us (you’d understand why if you heard us) and we were stuck for somewhere to play on what is usually one of the biggest moneyspinners of the year, so we decided to let the Black Horse in on the opportunity to snap us up before another pub did.

And snap us up they did.

My suspicions that they did not quite understand the concept of Christmas and New year were first aroused as they flicked through their diary to enter the booking and asked when Boxing Day was?, and what it meant…but I digress…surely everybody knows what New years Eve is all about??

The negotiations for the gig were excruciating. Every detail was argued about to the nth degree so they could get us and everything as cheaply as possible. We left there satisfied though, because on top of the fee ( the lowest ever – half what we got last year) they had agreed to:

Free beer all day and night for the band
A 3 course meal for the band
A night’s free accommodation in the B&B.

This ticked all the boxes for us, and we promptly signed up.

As we were due to leave for the gig, I received a call from another pub, saying they had been let down and that we could ‘name our price’ to blow the Black Horse out and play there instead.

Like a total fucking spacker – I remained loyal and told them to “shove it”. That act alone, as you will discover, would qualify under the ‘Dumb things I’ve done’ QOTW. To quote Cher – ‘If I could turn back time’, I would happily sacrifice both testes and a kidney to be able to bite the bastard’s hand off when he made his offer.

But I didn’t…and we went to the Black Horse.

When we turned up there was nobody there to see the band. The pub hadn’t advertised or even put posters up saying we were playing, obviously assuming that the local’s crystal balls would provide enough information of our impending performance. When questioned on this, they said that they “didn’t realise New Year’s Eve was an important night”

“What the fucking fuck? Where the hell do you have to come from to not understand that New Years Eve is Important?” I gently enquired.

This angered the pint-sized twunts…and to be fair, an angry Indian midget is pretty funny to watch…imagine an Oompa Loompa finding you in bed with his wife. But the deal started to turn sour from then on.

“No free beer” they barked as they charged us their usual exorbitant price for their watered down pissy cider. “You only get free drinks when you’re playing”. This turned into ONE FREE PINT EACH ALL COCKING NIGHT – the rest we had to pay for.

I started to suspect that they were going to try everything in their despicable power to try and renege on the terms of the gig. Little did I know what was to come…We.were.proper.fucked.

Fortunately, the restaurant was heaving with revellers (feel free to come back to this part after you’ve finished reading the post), and as they spilled out, they realised that there was a band on and stuck around to party.

So we started, it went pretty well and ended at about 1:30am, which to be honest was a little earlier than I thought it would, and despite their tightwaddedness I still managed to get nicely squiffy and everybody seemed to get arseholed and enjoy themselves.

The gig ended, and then the owners decided to started negotiations…again.

“We can’t afford to pay you” They bleated
“You fucking well can!” We retorted.

This continued for some time getting ever pettier, as they haggled and raised their offer in £10 instalments.

Now I’m not a violent person, but when talks stalled on HALF the agreed amount, I threatened to rip the till out of the wall, smack it over the owner’s twatty head and take the contents for myself (of the till that is, not the twatty head).

At this point he suddenly remembered he had the full amount. In his pocket. Funny that. What a cunt.

It was now time for the ‘3 course meal’…’Better late than never’ we thought…but our anticipation turned to horror and then despair as we were presented with….

3 poppadoms….small poppadoms. One fucking poppadom each.

mmmf

By now I was past caring and asked to be shown to my room. The three of us were presented with a bottle of Indian lager each (which was cack) and then we were pushed upstairs. As we entered the ‘living quarters’ the door was closed behind us…and LOCKED. They then left.

We were trapped there. It appears that they couldn’t trust us to have access to the pub without them present and so our lives and safety in the event of fire etc was considered by them to be of miniscule importance compared to the huge and tragic loss of somebody possibly blagging a free pint.

Now this, in case you’re wondering, is where the relevance to the QOTW really kicks in. We had access to 3 small rooms – a kitchen area, bathroom and bedroom.

I’d heard about those hovels where they hide asylum seekers away to turn them into sex slaves – well, if this was one of those, I’m not surprised the poor fuckers climbed back into whichever lorry they sneaked out of and knacked off back to their own country.

If you look up the word ‘shithole’ in the dictionary…there is no definition…just a picture of this place.

There was no furniture except for three bare, broken beds with no bedding or pillows. The mattresses were so filthy and covered in suspect stains that I’m convinced they were picked up the previous day from the rubbish skips of the local incontinence ward. There were flies, woodlice and other insects I can’t even bear thinking about roaming the place. The carpet was blue – at least I think it was blue, from what I could tell it must have previously been the venue of the ‘Who can defecate and puke over the floor the most’ world championships. There were no curtains and grime was crawling up the half painted walls

The smell was intolerable, and as we looked around the place to find somewhere remotely hygienic to sleep we discovered that the smell came from half eaten food that had been left in the fridge….from the previous owners…OVER A YEAR BEFORE. Clutching my bottle of rank lager, I physically retched as I entered the kitchen and stepped over the piles of smashed chairs. It was like being whumped in the face by a sledghammer of stink

The building should have been condemned for the bathroom alone. The plaster had come off the walls, the bath was chipped and broken and had green residue covering the bottom. The mould surrounded you, and for some reason there were dozens of toilet rolls. Not in packets, just strewn about all over the mushy floor.

And then there was the toilet. Oh yes. Think of the one out of Trainspotting crossed with the portaloos from Glastonbury during a dysentery epidemic and you’d come close. Like a rainbow of splattered mucus following detonation of an expertly placed gorilla turd bomb.

Bizarrely, next to the toilet was a toothbrush….Who would stick around to clean their teeth in that place is anyone’s guess.

I should mention here that all of these rooms….were directly above the RESTAURANT. I shudder to think what their kitchen downstairs is like.

We were trapped in there until 2:30 the following afternoon because the owners ‘forgot’ we were in there(!) and then kept making excuses as we relentlessly called and threatened to kick the door down.

As we were finally released and able to breathe again, they poured out a pint for each of us (without asking), then charged us for them. We were then thanked for our efforts the previous night, and promptly told that we had to get out…immediately. With this, two of the midget’s larger friends started lifting our equipment and throwing it outside by the front door.

Finally, they took our drinks out of our hands, put them on a garden table outside, locked the pub up again and drove off, papping the horn and waving as they drove off leaving us in total shock.

I tell you, I’m really considering not playing there again.

Apologies for length, and delay… but as you can no doubt tell, the wounds are still fresh.
( Pooflake braces for an onslaught..., Thu 17 Jan 2008, 17:05, 10 replies)

So close!
( Bongmaster Is a Junglist Soldier., Thu 17 Jan 2008, 17:05, closed)

I remember this tale.......
It's definitley a doozy!!

By the way, I'm clicking now because I
know what's coming.
( girlinthehole, Thu 17 Jan 2008, 17:13, closed)

*braces*

( Devil_In_Tights the *real* DiT!, Thu 17 Jan 2008, 17:14, closed)

Well done
Tip of the hat to you, Sir
(JasperSinister is offering two tickets to the gun show, Thu 17 Jan 2008, 17:17, closed)

*braced*
but I can't hold this position for too long....
(TheWeeWitch hasn't been here much recently .., Thu 17 Jan 2008, 18:15, closed)

Bah!
I got fed up waiting for this week's question, so went home... and now I find myself not appearing until page 2 of my own suggestion.

Devil, indeed.

(I don't remember you telling the story, btw...)
( Enzyme is powered by sunlight, Thu 17 Jan 2008, 20:18, closed)

I'm braced
... but if you don't hurry up and post, I'm going to shit myself from the strain!
(Greencloud Wanted to go fishing on, Fri 18 Jan 2008, 8:33, closed)

I know the place
I know the story too but you forgot to put in the Oompa Loompa-esqueness of the staff!

(Right the rest of you, work THAT fucker out!)
(Captain Placid 24/7 ball gags, brownie mix and clown porn, Fri 18 Jan 2008, 14:16, closed)

Ahhhh...
The Snap, Crackle and Pop story. It's coming back to me now.

Well told, that man - I agree that you ought to think hard before accepting a second booking there.
*click*
( Enzyme is powered by sunlight, Fri 18 Jan 2008, 16:19, closed)

Hehe!
Of course it's even funnier when this story is told in the flesh so to speak.
( girlinthehole, Fri 18 Jan 2008, 17:24, closed)